Complaint: Aspen wastewater threatening Ellen Trout Lake

By bobakini

Created 06/13/2011 - 1:47am

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 1:47am

Landowner files complian with TCEQ

Lufkin —
The Lufkin Daily News reports; A private landowner filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Equality, alleging the release of the new Aspen Power biomass plant’s wastewater into Ellen Trout Lake could adversely affect the area.

Aspen Power President Danny Vines filed for an industrial wastewater permit, stating the water will be released into an “unnamed tributary,” then to Ellen Trout Lake in North Lufkin, on to Mill Creek and into Paper Mill Creek before eventually making its way to the Angelina River/Sam Rayburn Reservoir.

When the permit was originally filed in February 2010, Vines proposed sending the wastewater into the city of Lufkin sewage system for treatment, according to the landowner’s consultant, Tim Karczewski of the Zeleskey law firm in Lufkin.

That proposal would have kept the wastewater out of Ellen Trout Lake, but at an estimated yearly price of $400,000 it was not cost-effective, according to Vines’ environmental attorney, Robin Morse of Houston.